We seem to be in a run of telling you about new projects we’re involved in at the moment. This time round, we’re partnering with our associates Snook to work with the Scottish Government on their groundbreaking ALISS project. Here our project lead, Lauren Currie, tells more…

Today we’re really pleased to announce the launch of the next stage of the Safeguarding 2.0 initiative. Back in August last year we hosted a round table discussion in partnership with the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) to talk about how we might use social web technologies to better safeguard children - and today we can announce that we have received initial funding from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) to carry out the research phase of the project.

‘How do you know it works?’ is one of those annoying questions that people seem to ask about social media. For some reason they’re never satisfied with ‘it just does’ as an answer, so our next event is a dream-team partnership between FutureGov and Measurement Camp to get to the bottom of social media measurement.

Inspired by much of what was emerging out of the US as well as some of our own homegrown intiatives, I felt moved to pen what I rather grandly called a “Digital Innovation Strategy for London”. Intended in the first instance to clear my head and organise my thoughts, I ended up passing it on to some senior London government colleagues for thoughts on how we might make some of it happen. In the spirit of the reviews of 2009 that are going around at the moment, I thought I would share one of the versions of what I wrote (with the help of my trusted co-conspirator Carrie) around this time last year and leave it to you to decide whether I was on to something or whether I was missing a trick - and how much has come to pass.

Wowzers. It’s been a busy year for FutureGov and we’re only just catching our breath. Not only have we done loads, but we’ve had a few changes as a company and grown in a really good way, with the chance to work with some brilliant people. Dominic and I thought we’d share some of our highlights like the cool projects we’ve been involved in, the events we’ve hosted and the thinking we’ve done. Warning: This might read a bit like one of those cheesy family news letters :s

While we all know where to find the number one Euro (w)e-gov event next week (*cough* Barcelona), there is also another *fairly* important conference going on some way north around the same time. Next Thursday sees the start of the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Meeting and Conference, which will be taking place at the Malmö Exhibition and Convention Centre, Sweden. The conference is intended to agree a Ministerial Declaration that will set out the roadmap for eGovernment across Europe up until 2015…

I’m very excited to tell you about FutureGov’s next event - The Crowdsourced Council: online tools for participative policy making. Not only is it a triumph of aliteration, it’s also shaping up to be a great session about tools and tactics for getting actual people involved in shaping policy. In partnership with Capital Ambition, we’ve invited some great people to show off their tools: The founder of Uservoice will be there along with the clever Audio/Videoboo people of Best Before Media, the co-founder of Yoosk, and the founder and CEO of Debatewise. We’ll also be introducing US company GovDelivery and getting a look at new tool Quiet Riots.

Swindon are working with the Leadership Centre for local government and FutureGov to explore ways of using new methods of on and offline engagement to help councillors to engage with local communities in new and interesting ways as part of the 21st Century Councillors programme. Here, Gavin Calthrop from Swindon Borough Council explains a bit about the project and how it fits into Swindon’s wider aspirations as a forward thinking local authority.

“More meaningful engagement with local people is one of the key principles of our Connecting People, Connecting Places programme. The future of public services lies in more collaboration with local people and enabling active participation in decision making and service delivery at a local level…”

Here at FutureGov we love nothing more than bringing together a wide range of people to think, share and collaborate on ideas and projects that will transform the way we do government, whether from inside government or in the social innovation space. Recently we have been in conversation with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) discussing some of our ideas for social innovation but also how we can work with NESTA to help them achieve their wider goals of public service innovation, leveraging our exciting and diverse network of thinkers and doers in the government and social space.

As most of you will know, FutureGov are fully signed up members of the Social Innovation Camp fan club. We’ve not missed any of the four that have taken place so far, personally helping to lead on a couple of projects at the first two camps in London (Enabled by Design and Accesscity). While I was at the fourth Social Innovation Camp, Social Innovation Camp Central and Eastern Europe in Bratislava last month, the chance came up for us collaborate at this week’s New Media Forum in Tbilisi, Georgia.